If you take a snapshot of the world as it stands today, a few things come to mind: our population is exploding as we hit seven billion this month, the Middle East is erupting with protests and calls for democracy and human rights, and the GOP candidates are debating weekly on how they can best improve our economy and country.
However, few of the images we conjure include the $8 billion industry that involves about 12 million people a year, the third largest illegal trade after drugs and arms: sex trafficking.
By definition, sex trafficking is a specific form of human trafficking – when people are involuntarily transported, abducted, or harbored and exploited for sexual purposes.
The definition might seem technical and dry, but the stories of victims are far from it – sex trafficking includes the teenage girls who cross the border from Mexico to the United States in hopes of finding a better life but find instead a brothel; the children who are sold for 15-minute slots throughout the day; the runaways who are abducted and sold.
These stories aren’t just heart-wrenching accounts from the third world. They are the stories from small towns and big cities across America. The shocking numbers tell all: Tens of thousands of women and children are trafficked from Mexico to the United States every year and many American children, estimates run as high as 100,000, who are often runaways but also those from ‘good’ families – are abducted, coerced, or lured away from home and then sold for sex.
The problem we face is not only the horrific reality that people are trafficked and that there is a market, both in the United States and around the world, that exists to exploit these people, but also that we know so little about the problem and its magnitude.
And so, it’s the people who are making noise about sex trafficking who are the ones making a difference. The people like Triveni Acharya, who runs the Rescue Foundation in India, where she rescues and rehabilitates young girls who are victims of sex trafficking. By taking on the prostitution rings and pimps on a daily basis, Acharya doesn’t just make change, she also makes the headlines, raising awareness with her raids and rehabilitation program.
And it’s people like Lydia Cacho, a courageous journalist who has tried to tell the story of sex trafficking from every angle – not only by interviewing extensively, but by going undercover as well, who are raising awareness by raising their voices.
Masuma is a news junkie who has lived on three continents. This has led to an interest in global issues and international politics. She is particularly interested in understanding the role the media plays in politics – especially how it influences public policy and how it can facilitate cross-cultural conversation and debate. She is a recent graduate from Oxford, with an honors BA in Politics, Philosophy, and Economics. When not following the news, Masuma can be found baking a mean cheesecake, on a road trip, or learning to kick-box.
